


Son

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, MSR, Season 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22935991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Mulder and Jackson sharing a father/son moment where they play basketball together.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Son

The scraping noise alerted him. Hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Scully snuffled but didn’t stir, her sleep patterns disturbed by late pregnancy. There it was again. A distinctive scratching, low bumps and the occasional clang. Mulder sprang from the bed, grabbing a sweatshirt and slipping his feet into his runners without even bothering to tie them until he was down the stairs. Gathering his torch, his weapon, his wits, he was outside into the frigid dawn in seconds.

“Hey old man.”

The swagger in the voice forced Mulder to pocket his weapon, the slack waistband of his jogging pants stretching to expose his back to the morning chill. He tightened the lace inside and pulled his top down.

“I’m fixing a basketball hoop, before you ask.” Jackson ran one hand up the side of a ladder that leant against Mulder’s new garage. “You need one.”

Mulder scratched the back of his neck. “At 5.30 in the morning. Your mom’s…”

“Asleep. I know. She was awake most of the night, though. God, she gets grouchy these days.”

“Uh-huh, that she does, but is this really necessary?” Mulder couldn’t wrap his head around the connection between mother and son. His instinct was still to fire off a series of questions to properly understand it, but he’d had enough of Scully’s miffed expressions to tamp his racing mind.

Jackson bounced his foot off the hoop causing the wadded net to unfurl. “Is that really a question, pop?”

“I didn’t even hear the truck,” Mulder said, ignoring his son’s smirking tone. The pick-up looked new. “When did you get that?”

“Doesn’t matter really, does it?” Jackson loped to the tray and grabbed a tool bag. He shoved it at Mulder’s chest. “Get the drill out, I’ll do the dangerous stuff. Can’t have retirees doing too much this early. The occurrence of cardiac arrest in men of your age, on a Monday, is high, especially in the morning.”

“Fuck you,” Mulder muttered, yanking the sides of the tool bag open.

“Hush your mouth, mother will hear,” Jackson sang out in a faux-Southern accent as he climbed the rungs.

Mulder couldn’t help but chuckle. He wouldn’t have dared talk to his own father that way. Once, aged about 17, he’d cursed in front of Bill and copped a back-hander and grounding. During that period of solitary, he’d studied Oxford entrance requirements and made up his mind to leave at the earliest opportunity. He was glad to have found some more solid ground with his father in later years. Separation helped heal the festering wound of Samantha’s disappearance.

The same couldn’t be said for Jackson and he and Scully. That wound had remained weeping for years.

Mulder hoisted the hoop set up to his son, handed him the drill, watched him work. That floppy hair, the gritted teeth, the flashing smile every so often. Pure Mulder. But the steely eyes, the surety of his hands, the precision, that was all Scully.

Back down on the handstanding, admiring his handiwork, Jackson span the ball on his left index finger. A genetic throwback or a learned thing?

“One on one, old man?”

He tossed the ball at Mulder, quick, no chance to react. It hit him square in the face and bounced away, echoing in the stillness. Cold stung at his throbbing nose. Jackson laughed and ran to collect the ball, dribbling it around Mulder, who stood rubbing his face, trying to get his fingers to unknot.

“Come on, pop. Get moving.”

A jig to the left, a hip to the right and his feet followed suit. Soon, he was dancing around, arms stretching this way and that, turning his back, bending, looping around. Adrenaline pumped around his body, energising his limbs.

“Mulder.” Scully’s drawn out, remonstrated version of his name caught his attention and he swung round to see her leaning against the doorjamb, hands crossed over the crest of her bump. Mulder rested his hands on his knees, inhaling sharply. Jackson slam dunked a goal and whooped and Scully dropped her head, laughing and shaking it at the same time. “Get inside before you freeze to death. Coffee’s on.”

“Five more minutes, mom.”

Hearing their son use that small word forced more air out of his lungs. He tilted his face to Jackson, saw him reflecting on it too, the power of it, the way it slipped out with check. So natural. Scully’s mouth was a perfect O for a microsecond, before she gathered herself, tying the straining robe further around her non-existent waist.

“Come in when you’re ready,” she said, casting a look at Mulder that suggested she was still processing the incident, before adding quietly, but firmly, “son.”


End file.
